Sending my baby to Kindergarten- what do I want to be when I grow up?

Editor’s Note: It’s back to school time. I start on Tuesday and Ari starts preschool the 5th. How are the rest of you handling the transition? Thanks for the diary, Paida! -Elisa

Tomorrow is a big day. My baby- well my five year old son Pablo will start Kindergarten.

My daughter Aida started 3 years ago and I remember it being emotional for me, but nothing like this is. My stomach goes in a knot just thinking about it. One reason is that Pablo is more nervous about it than his sister was- he is just a more cautious kid.

However, I realize that a lot of my angst about this change is what it means for me rather than him. I taught English in Japan for three years and that is where I met my husband. (A Mexican BTW- just what I expected to find in Japan- a Mexican husband) About a year before we were coming back to the states and I would have really had to decide what I wanted to do with my life I accidentally got pregnant. When my daughter was almost 3 and she was becoming more independent I got pregnant again. Very convenient for me and the “what do I want to do with my life” question.I have worked both part time and full time in my years as a mother, but never doing anything that I felt was really fulfilling or something I wanted to do forever.

A big chapter of my life is almost over. In 24 hours I no longer will be the mother of pre-school age kids. That is both sad and exciting. I know that my kids are still young and that they still need an enormous amount of attention, but I want and need to get a “career” that means something to me. I would love to go back to school, but financially that can’t happen right now. We own a house here in San Diego(if you can call this shoe box a house!) and we need more $ to cover our expenses.

I am obsessed with news and politics. (like many of us I suspect) I had 2 job interviews with our local NPR station working as an assistant to the News Director (a grunt job, but I would have been happy to be that grunt) I didn’t get the job, but just the prospect of working in that environment made me so excited. It was also 20-30 hours a week- perfect right?

Unfortunately those “not quite” full time, rewarding jobs are not very easy to find and they should be! I can get more things done now in 25 hours than I could pre-kids in 40- motherhood gives you a whole new angle on time management. Plus I have lived through age 2 twice so I know how to deal with difficult co-workers!

Tomorrow my baby goes to Kindergarten- and hopefully he won’t be the only one in the family to have a year full of learning new things and making new friends.